Colleges

Use and disclosure of personal information provided to the College and Community Innovation program

All personal information collected by the College and Community Innovation (CCI) program related to researchers, company and college employees, community members and others is used to review applications and to administer and monitor awards. Consistent with these purposes, personal information submitted by the college to the CCI program may also come to be used and disclosed in the following activities.

The three participating agencies—NSERC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)—will share information among themselves as required to manage the program. All three agencies are subject to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, which strictly limit the use and disclosure of personal and other sensitive kinds of information. For further details on access rights and on the implementation of these laws by each agency, please consult the agencies’ websites, as follows: NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR.

The agencies will share information related to applications and awards with the relevant official(s) in the college that applied to the CCI program and administers the award.

As part of the review process, applications will be disclosed to award selection committees composed of experts recruited from the postsecondary community and the private and public sectors. Proposals may also be shared with external reviewers, if necessary. All participants in CCI review activities must signify that they will abide by legal requirements and expectations with regard to the confidentiality and protection of the information entrusted to them.

The three agencies sometimes use personal information in research grant proposals to identify prospective committee members and expert reviewers to assist with the review of grant applications. The assistance of these individuals is then sought on a consent basis.

Applications submitted to the program may be reviewed, as required, under the Impact Assessment Act (IAA). Portions of the research proposals could be shared with other federal government departments for review as required by the Act.

The agencies routinely publish and disseminate certain details about successful applications (including the name of the college, amount awarded, area of research, project title and a summary of the research proposal prepared by the applicant) for public release. This information will normally be published on the agencies’ websites.

Files and databases containing personal information may also be used by the agencies for program planning, evaluation and review, in audits and for generating statistics for these activities.

Information submitted to the program is subject to the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research and may be used and disclosed consistent with that framework. Information may be shared with CIHR or SSHRC and other granting agencies for the purpose of reviewing the compliance of research institutions and individual researchers with the Tri-agency framework: Responsible conduct of research and other policies.

In cases of a serious breach of agency policy, as determined by the agency president, the agency may publicly disclose any information relevant to the breach that is in the public interest, including the name of the researcher subject to the decision, the nature of the breach, the institution where the researcher was employed at the time of the breach, the institution where the researcher is currently employed and the recourse imposed against the researcher. In determining whether a breach is serious, the agency will consider the extent to which the breach jeopardizes the safety of the public or would bring the conduct of research into disrepute. For further information, see the NSERC Consent to Disclosure of Personal Information Policy - Frequently asked questions.

Contact information that is provided during the registration process of the NSERC online system is used by NSERC’s technical staff to identify and contact users when routine systems monitoring reveals that they may require technical assistance.

The agencies may use the personal information found in the proposal to contact researchers about program information, or to refine their mailing lists on a consent basis. The agencies do not share address information with other individuals or organizations.